At first, it was one of those classic deals that seems too good to pass up: Buy the maintenance contract and the product is free. Sounds like something you'd hear from the cell phone company, right? Well, in this case, the give-away was a bit bigger: The Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov. The offer apparently wasn't what the Indian government was looking for when it first came from Moscow three years ago. The Russians wanted guarantees that India would spend millions to recondition the carrier. Still, it was a starting point. Meeting in New Delhi Saturday, India's Cabinet Committee of Security, chaired by Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, authorized the country's defense minister to finalize the deal.